board from time to time. The emperor took no other bever age than the chocolatl, a potation of chocolate, flavored with vanilla and other spices, and so prepared as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which gradually dissolved in the mouth. This beverage, if so it could be called, was served in golden goblets, with spoons of the same metal or tortoise shell finely wrought. The emperor was exceedingly. fond of it, to judge from the quantity, no less than fifty jars or pitchers being prepared for his own daily consumption. Two thousand more were allowed for that of his household. The general arrangement of the meal seems to have been not very unlike that of Europeans. But no prince in Europe could boast a dessert which could compare with that of the Aztec emperor. For it was gathered from the most opposite climes; and his board displayed the products of his own temperate region, and the luscious fruits of the tropics, plucked the day previous from the green groves of the tierra calliente, and transmitted with the speed of steam, by means of couriers, to the capital. It was as if some kind fairy should crown our banquets with the spicy products that but yesterday were growing in a sunny isle of the far-off Indian seas. After the royal appetite was appeased, water was handed to him by the female attendants, in a silver basin, in the same manner as had been done before commencing his meal; for the Aztecs were as constant in their ablutions, at these times, as any nation of the East. Pipes were then brought, made of a varnished and richly gilt wood, from which he inhaled sometimes through the nose, at others through the mouth, the fumes of an intoxicating weed, called "tobacco," mingled with liquid amber. While this soothing process of fumigation was going on, the emperor enjoyed the exhibitions of his mountebanks and jugglers, of whom a regular corps was attached to the place. No people, not even those of China or Hindostan, surpassed the Aztecs in feats of agility and legerdemain. Sometimes he amused himself with his jester; for the Indian monarch had his jesters, as well as his more refined brethren of Europe, at that day. Indeed, he used to say, that more instruction was to be gathered from them than from wiser men, for they dared to tell the truth. At other times, he witnessed the graceful dances of his women, or took delight in listening to music, if the rude minstrelsy of the Mexicans deserve that name, accompanied by a chant, in a slow and solemn cadence, celebrating the heroic deeds of great Aztec warriors, or of his own princely line. When he had sufficiently refreshed his spirits with these diversions, he composed himself to sleep, for in his siesta he was as regular as a Spaniard. On awaking, he gave audience to ambassadors from foreign states or his own tributary cities, or to such caciques as had suits to prefer to him. They were introduced by the young nobles in attendance, and, whatever might be their rank, unless of the blood royal, they were obliged to submit to the humiliation of shrouding their rich dresses under the coarse mantle of nequen, and、tering barefooted, with downcast eyes, into the presence. The emperor addressed few and brief remarks to the suitors, answering them generally by his secretaries; and the parties retired with the same reverential obeisance, taking care to keep their faces turned towards the monarch. Well might Cortez exclaim, that no court, whether of the Grand Seignior, or any other infidel, ever displayed so pompous and elaborate a ceremonial. Besides the crowd of retainers already noticed, the royal household was not complete without a host of artisans constantly employed in the erection or repair of buildings, besides a great number of jewelers and persons skilled in working metals, who found abundant demand for their trinkets among the dark-eyed beauties of the harem. The imperial mummers and jugglers were also very numerous, and the dancers belonging to the palace occupied a particular district of the city, appropriated exclusively to them. The maintenance of this little host, amounting to some thousands of individuals, involved a heavy expenditure, requiring accounts of a complicated, and, to a simple people, it might well be, embarrassing nature. Everything, however, was conducted with perfect order; and all the various receipts and disbursements were set down in the picture writing of the country. The arithmetical characters were of a more refined and conventional sort than those for narrative purposes; and a separate apartment was filled with hieroglyphical ledgers, exhibiting a complete view of the economy of the palace. The care of all this was intrusted to a treasurer, who acted as a sort of major-domo in the household, having a general superintendence over all its concerns. This responsible office, on the arrival of the Spaniards, was in the hands of a trusty cacique named Tapia. Such is the picture of Montezuma's domestic establishment and way of living, as delineated by the Conquerors and their immediate followers, who had the best means of information; too highly colored, it may be, by the proneness to exaggerate, which was natural to those who first witnessed a spectacle so striking to the imagination, so new and unexpected. I have thought it best to present the full details, trivial though they may seem to the reader, as affording a curious picture of manners, so superior in point of refinement to those of the other aboriginal tribes on the North American continent. Nor are they, in fact, so trivial, when we reflect that, in these details of private life, we possess a surer measure of civilization than in those of a public nature. In surveying them, we are strongly reminded of the civili zation of the East; not of that higher, intellectual kind which belonged to the more polished Arabs and the Persians, but that semicivilization which has distinguished, for example, the Tartar races, among whom art, and even science, have made, indeed, some progress in their adaptation to material wants and sensual gratifications, but little in reference to the higher and more ennobling interests of humanity. It is characteristic of such people to find a puerile, dazzling, and ostentatious pageantry; to mistake show for substance, vain pomp for power; to hedge round the throne itself, with a barren and burdensome ceremonial, the counterfeit of real majesty. Even this, however, was an advance in refinement compared with the rude manners of the earlier Aztecs. The change may doubtless be referred in some degree to the personal influence of Montezuma. In his younger days, he had tempered the fierce habits of the soldier with the milder profession of religion. In later life, he had withdrawn himself still more from the brutalizing occupations of war, and his manners acquired a refinement, tinctured, it may be added, with an effeminacy unknown to his martial predecessors. THE HERITAGE JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL NOTE TO THE PUPIL. - James Russell Lowell, noted as poet, critic, and diplomat, was born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1819. He is not as popular as Longfellow, and will not be read by as young readers. Those of you who are fond of dialect writing will enjoy the "Biglow Papers." You should read Sir Launfal,” if you read nothing else of Lowell's. "Among My Books" and "My Study Windows" are his best volumes of essays. Lowell died in 1891. THE rich man's son inherits lands, And piles of brick, and stone, and gold, And he inherits soft white hands, And tender flesh that fears the cold, Nor dares to wear a garment old; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. The rich man's son inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. The rich man's son inherits wants, His stomach craves for dainty fare; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. What doth the poor man's son inherit? A hardy frame, a hardier spirit; King of two hands he does his part A heritage, it seems to me, What doth the poor man's son inherit? |